Creating Success with Difficult Students, Part Three

Creating Success with Difficult Students

PART THREE: Further Interventions for Teachers.

By Troy L Parrish, MA LCPC

        Enlisting the help of a teacher in dealing with a challenging student can be invaluable. As a teacher, finding the resources to deal with difficult students and still be available for the remaining students can be a significant challenge. The purpose of this article is to present some ideas that may be helpful in dealing with this challenge.

        The first intervention in part three is the attention of the teacher. Many students, particularly younger children, will respond well to teacher attention as they want that approval. For positive behavior, positive attention from the teacher such as a smile, nod or a pat on the back can go a long way towards a child maintaining involvement in the educational process in the classroom. For older students, knowing the student and what type of recognition from the teacher would be reinforcing is important. Open acknowledgement for a younger student may be very helpful but for older students may cause embarrassment. In reverse, the withdraw of this attention from the teacher when negative behavior occurs can work to inhibit the undesirable behavior.

        The introduction of tangible rewards for positive behavior is another intervention that can be used. Simple, straight forward rewards or the more structure token programs can be used. A token program is a behavioral modification program that is established with the understanding that certain behaviors will get specific rewards and typically involves a chart and tracking behavior and rewards. These programs are most effective when they are behaviorally specific, behaviorally concrete and usually involve a few behaviors on which to focus. When used in conjunction with positive teacher attention, these types of programs (token programs) are more powerful than either one by themselves.

        As with the rules from Part One of this article, there is also times when there is need for consequences for behavior. As would be implied earlier with teacher attention, one consequence that can be utilized is ignoring the child when they are exhibiting negative behavior. Additionally, negative attention from the teacher in the form of a reprimand can also be used. If a reward system has been put into use, the loss of that reward can be a consequence. One way that this works is to provide a certain number of rewards ahead of time and when there is negative behavior the student loses one of those rewards. Another way of looking at this is that the child gets to keep all the rewards he or she has earned through the desirable behavior.   Again, the use of time out for negative behavior can be used although a period of speaking with the child about the reason for the time out is important if the child is to learn from that experience.

        If your child or student requires the presentation of a token program (or behavioral modification program) it will be desirable to eventually move them to other forms of reinforcement. This becomes clear as the child gets older and the types of rewards required to engage them become more complex or simply too expensive. Ideally, you would want to move the child to initially begin to respond to positive teacher attention. After a period of success at the level of positive teacher attention, the introduction of self monitoring and self reward program can be introduced. In self monitoring the student themselves keep track of their behavior and evaluate their performance. This can then be compared to the teacher's evaluation either for tangible rewards or reinforcement through positive teacher attention. Ultimately you will want the student to be self monitoring these behaviors without any overt reinforcement be given to them.

        If you have need of creating a good behavioral modification program, sometimes schools with have a guidance counselor or school psychologist that can assist you in developing an appropriate and effective behavioral modification program.

Part Four of this article will look at some ideas for parents at home.